


Three Ways of Looking At A Poison Dart

by IronAndRags



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 07:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17300717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronAndRags/pseuds/IronAndRags
Summary: In one person's telling of that night, a fire chief was slain in a terrible accident. But many stories are told, with many purposes...[An attempt to restore some ambiguity.]





	1. One Way of Looking At A Poison Dart

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	2. Another Way of Looking At A Poison Dart

Annegret shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She hated the opera, and even so tonight's performance seemed unusually lousy. She was only here to receive a coded message, and felt a certain sense of personal outrage that M. S. had concealed it in the middle of such a long and abominable theatrical performance. Even she, Annegret, had her limits when it came to VFD's Whiggish obsessiveness about self-improvement.

"If warbling Italian monks are the road to self-improvement, I think I'd rather be a villain," she had told Victor the previous night.

"I think it's good for all of us to do something with Olaf while we're in the city. At least the opera house doesn't deck itself out in holly, and it's pleasanter than a Chinese restaurant. Besides, with the two of us there, we have better chances of not missing the hidden message," he'd said.

She had agreed, finally, although mostly because it was a chance to spend some time with Olaf, now that he was all grown up. Her husband's supposed concern about missing the coded message seemed a bit rich; even for a message as critical as this one, the vital piece of information that would enable the conspirators' greatest act of sabotage yet, VFD had a penchant for the obvious and highly telegraphed secret message; a well-trained ape would probably have been sufficient.

Thinking of this, Annegret looked down scornfully at her program, which featured a handwritten insert announcing the guest star "Sevald Gebust" as "Village Bell-Ringer". It occured to her to wonder if this was related to the VFD's habit of employing nine-year-olds as spies.

 _They really do deserve what we're going to do to them,_ she thought.

Turning her opera glasses to the rows behind her, she anxiously scanned the seats for a familiar face. There were three children struggling to close a trenchcoat around their bodies, who she thought she recognized as the Montparnasse triplets.

"Are you all right, mother?" Olaf asked, straightening his carrot-red toupee. She didn't have the heart to tell him how unconvincing his disguises were.

"If those Montparnasse brats are the only spies here, then our secret is safe, and the _picnic on Wednesday_ can go as we planned. I just can't help thinking that the Baudelaires found out, somehow, that they'll be here waiting for us. It's like a premonition," she said.

"A what?" he asked. Olaf had never been a big reader.

"A premonition. It's a creeping feeling that something very, very terrible is about to happen."

Olaf patted her shoulder. "Don't be ridiculous, mother. Look over there -- I don't have opera glasses with me to magnify my vision, but even I can see that father is standing up by the fuses in the opera house rafters, just like you told him to."

As she was swinging her opera glasses around to look where he was pointing, she spotted a face in the crowd, peeking out from under a ridiculous hat. Beatrice.

She yanked his arm down violently. "Olaf!" she hissed. "Don't point-"

And then there was a sharp, stinging pain in the side of her neck. And then darkness.


	3. A Third Way of Looking At A Poison Dart

Beatrice rolled the dart between her fingers, testing its weight.

"F really is a genius. This dart is as light as a butterfly," she said, miming a throwing motion.

Bertrand chewed his thumb with visible anxiety. "Remember to be careful with that, dear. If you miss, our whole organization could go up in smoke."

"My uncle was the darts champion of Bengal seven years in a row. I think I can handle what we are preparing to do," she said.

Bertrand drummed his fingers on the false cigar box and chewed his thumb again. Beatrice could tell that something was troubling him. "What's wrong, dear?" she asked.

"You have convinced me to do many dangerous and unlikely things for our organization. I know that we won't be facing a nest of flesh-eating peacocks tonight, or jumping out of a hot-air balloon. But especially with a little boy of our own -- are we making the world quieter, Beatrice? Are we putting out fires, or starting them?"

She looked at him with a cold, steely stare. He hated it when she did that. "You said it yourself: our whole organization is in peril. Water puts out fires, but not fire-starters. There are terrible things out there, Bertrand, and sometimes we have to be terrible ourselves to face them," she said.

He sighed. "Do you have to kill the boy, too? It just seems awful. Ever since the Saturday revolution everyone has been so cold and paranoid. Q was the only victim of that fire, you know? What if that was an accident? You say there are terrible things afoot, but what if you're wrong? What if there's nothing out there trying to get us?"

Suddenly there was a _crack crack crack_ of gunfire, and a sound of muffled shouting on the street outside. Bertrand visibly tensed. This was usually a safe neighborhood.

Beatrice looked him in the eye. "If there's nothing out there, then what was that noise?"

He looked down, and then quickly went over to close the window shades.

"Two darts, Bertrand. One for the father, and one for the son. I can only imagine what might happen to us if one of them misses."


End file.
